Environmental Construction Best Practices Means a Focus On Employee Safety

Across Canada and the United States today representatives with health and safety administrations are working toward making sure that all jobs that want to carry a "green" certification must take into consideration employee safety as well as environmental responsibility.

"The green movement and occupational health and safety efforts have largely operated in their own spheres; only recently has there been a move to create synergy between the two fields. In the past, greening efforts had largely ignored the concept of worker safety and in some extreme cases, made work more dangerous. Consider the substitution of solvent-based paints by water-based varieties, which include the addition of biocides intended to harm living organisms and require the use of personal protective equipment."

The Green Jobs Initiative paves the way for the understanding that protection of the environment means that attention needs to be paid to the protection of the worker at the same time. This is especially true when handling hazardous materials on site. “You can’t have a healthy planet if the people are sick from toxic chemicals that keep the planet green,” says John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada in Ottawa.

At FERRO Canada, the workplace safety issue is at the forefront of our minds when planning any construction project. We are a leading environmental services company specializing in abatement, demolition, soil remediation, excavation and plant closures throughout Canada. In this working environment we cannot forget the proper handling of safety issues we are presented with every day. We strive to make sure we address potential safety challenges while in the design process, as well as working to avoid hazards in the workplace during manufacture, construction, maintenance and disposal of materials and equipment.

When the work involves environmental construction techniques, you can be sure that our team will follow through and apply our expertise to the situation. When you only have one chance to get it right, we will get it done.

No matter how big the site, or how small the detail, contact us and FERRO can be on-site and on-call 24/7. You can also reach us by calling our C.R.A.S.H. Team at 1-877-429-7760.